Julie Taylor & April Thomas
APP Outreach Committee
We don’t use machines to create beautiful piercings, but for most of us, being a piercer involves much more than the installation of jewelry. As our jobs as body piercers become more multi faceted it is now common place to find more efficient and economical ways of doing all of the parts that now make up our job. This is where we can use technology; it can make many of our tasks more efficient and improve workflow; the integration of multiple technological tools can provide even more benefits. In this article we will take a quick look at some of the ways piercers can currently use technology in their studios to improve efficiency.
Point of sale system (POS)
– Create your next order automatically based on custom targets
– See inventory instantly
– Manual counting of each piece is required less often
– See sales in real time from home or away
– Track a variety of statistics, from best sellers to busiest time of day
– Use reporting features to identify business opportunities or trends
Client tracking software (sometimes integrated with POS)
– Set up and maintain client reward program
– Single out groups for marketing (birthdays, top gold purchasers in the last 6 months, all nostril piercings this month, etc)
– Generate contact list for an email newsletter
– Send reminders for check ups and other appointments
– Access sizes, wish lists, dates of services and other details for individual clients
– Commit phone clients by booking and scheduling appointments
Accounting software (also may integrate with POS)
– Track even more statistics
– Have year end figures ready at tax time
– All calculations are done by the software
– Handle payroll
Digital waivers
– Nothing to file or store, saving time and space
CCTV cameras
– Watch business from afar
– Added security
Online appointment booking (sometimes integrated with POS)
– Access schedules from home or away
– Clients can book themselves, reducing phone calls and emails
Social media
– Lower priced or free, targeted, advertising
– Easily respond to clients in a frequently used platform
– Scheduling software allows the streamlining of posts to multiple platforms over multiple days in one session.
Website
– Showcase all your info and portfolios together with aftercare, driving directions, links and more
– Collect data from here to shape marketing efforts
– Digitally book appointments to commit online shoppers
– Integrate with search engines for higher SEO results
– Integrate with social media (provide links between)
Cloud storage & file transfer systems (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc)
– Share photos and documents among team members
– Work on projects from home
– Less (or no) risk of losing work as a result of hardware failure
Google maps
– Show business by name
– Makes clients’ experiences easier
– Reduce calls for directions
Mobile phone
– Take photos to help line up paired piercings, show clients ear or other placements that are hard for them to see, as well as portfolio photos
– Access your portfolio anywhere
– Use software for many of the above tasks while at home or away, including POS, CCTVs, Google, social media, and more (this article was written entirely with the Google Docs application)
Each one of these categories of technology could have an entire issue devoted to it. This quick reference was not meant to provide you with the information to best implement and utilize each of these technologies within your shops and business models. Instead, we hope this quick reference will help readers determine which technologies could make a meaningful impact in their studio. Hopefully this reference guide will allow you to isolate an area or procedure that can be improved upon and give you the tools to begin the research process.
